Successful Light Planes

In its monthly letter to salesmen, Wichita's Cessna Aircraft Co. could find only one way to describe business: "Sales are booming, booming, booming." Like the rest of the U.S. light-plane industry, Cessna is indeed in the midst of the biggest peacetime boom in its history. In 1955's first quarter alone, Cessna, Beech and Piper, the three top private plane makers, sold more than 1,000 planes, worth $20.8 million, a full 40% better than last year. Reason: businessmen are flying nearly 4,000,000 hours annually, more than all the scheduled airlines put together.

One day last week eleven new Cessna planes, worth $261,000, buzzed out of Wichita, for delivery to businessmen in five states. It was one of the biggest delivery days in Cessna history. Last year the company sold 1,199 commercial planes, worth $15 million; this year it expects to hit $30 million and pass Beech in dollar-volume as the biggest private plane maker. Beech Aircraft Corp., which sold $22 million worth of commercial planes in 1954, is aiming at $26 million. Piper Aircraft Corp. will increase its sales from $11 million to $16 million.

Bombers to Babies. The new boom is all the more remarkable because the light-plane industry almost cracked up after

World War II. Concentrating on light, two-place personal planes for returning G.I.s and sportsmen, the plane makers had a few brief years of heady profits, then nose-dived when the war-inspired interest in private flying died down. By 1950 many of the hopeful new firms had gone broke, and the big three found the going rough. What gave them a lift was the new businessman-flyer, plus defense orders. With the increasing diversification of U.S. industry, thousands of businessmen found flying a necessity. But up to then, most of their planes were war-surplus bombers and transports that cost up to $100 an hour to fly, were useless away from the long runways of big-city airports. To solve the problem, the plane makers designed a new class of baby, four-and five-place executive planes that ranged in price from $6,500 to $50,000, had top speeds of 220 m.p.h. Within two years, executive planes accounted for an estimated 80% of all commercial light-plane production (v. only 7% in 1946).

Big companies such as General Motors, Continental Oil, Dow Chemical and Coca-Cola added the new planes to their transport fleets. More important, hundreds of small and medium-sized businessmen discovered that they could afford to fly. With four people in a plane, seat costs dropped as low as 5-c- per mile (v. 5-c- for scheduled airliners). The added savings in time and energy getting to remote spots was incalculable. Lumbermen bought planes to appraise mountain tracts more easily; ranchers used them for aerial roundups; construction men, uranium hunters, salesmen, all took to the air.

In Grass Lake, Mich., G.E. Archenbronn, president of Radio-Television Products, bought a Cessna 180 in 1953 for quick trips between the home office and a California plant, has now flown 100,000 miles on company business, occasionally takes his family along. Milwaukee Publisher Ken Cook shelled out $20,000 for his first Beech Bonanza in 1954. He was able to call on so many more customers that he credits the plane with doubling his business to $500,000 last year, confidently expects to top $1,000,000 in 1955. Even Cowboy Star Gene Autry has turned flyer, bought a twin Beech light transport to whip around the U.S. on his singing tours.

Twins for All. The light plane makers are now going in for bigger twin-engined executive craft. Since 1949 every major company has brought out a "baby twin." Though these planes cost up to $95,000, businessmen are snapping them up as fast as they come off the assembly lines. Beech alone sold 115 of its speedy (205 m.p.h.) Twin Bonanzas last year for $8,740,000, nearly 40% of its entire commercial business; Piper has produced more than 200 light, relatively inexpensive ($35,000) Apache models, including one for General Motors Director Charles F. Kettering. Cessna's new $49,950 Model 310, first introduced last summer (TIME, Aug. 9), is now coming out of the factory at the rate of one a day, and orders are booked solid into November.

The plane makers estimate that at least 150,000 U.S. businessmen are prime prospects for light planes, with another 200,000 potential customers just over the horizon.

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